Kentucky State Police reported this week that are searching for Miya Tucker, an eight-month-old baby who tested positive for methamphetamine when she was born, and who is currently missing.
The girl’s parents, Tesla Tucker, 29, and Cage Rudd, 30; grandparents Billie J. Smith, 49, and Ricky J. Smith, 56; and a fifth person, identified as Timothy L. Roach, have been arrested.
All are from the Reynolds Station area except Roach, who is from Owensboro, police said in a statement on Facebook.
Authorities used cadaver dogs Tuesday to search some woods near the missing girl’s home, but no discovery was reported.
“We have no evidence that he has died. But we also have no proof that she is alive“State Police Trooper Corey King told NBC affiliate WFIE from nearby Evansville, Indiana.
State police, who announced the arrest of Miya’s parents and his grandfather on Thursday, said all three were charged with child neglect and fentanyl-related charges.
King told WFIE that the parents were contacted at a Motel 6 in Kentucky in a room where drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine pills, were “in plain sight.”
Miya was not there, authorities said.
State police announced Sunday that Miya’s grandmother had also been arrested after discovering she had an active warrant for domestic violence when they went to her residence to look for the girl.
Additionally, they said that at the grandmother’s residence they saw a man, identified as Roach, who had “non-prescribed” drugs under his vehicle, which led to his arrest on suspicion of having a controlled substance.
It is unclear what relationship Roach has to the family, if any.
King noted that a family member said they had not seen Miya since late April. When the girl was born in October, her umbilical cord tested positive for methamphetamine. Miya has three older brothers who were removed from their home by state authorities citing alleged drug problems.
The state Health and Family Services Cabinet also intended to remove Miya, King said.
Her parents told the authorities that the Cabinet had already taken the girl, but the officer assured that this is not true.
King, a spokesman for state police in the Reynolds Station area, about 90 miles southwest of Louisville, said investigators are still hopeful that Miya can be found alive.
But he warned: “The longer this goes on, the grimmer the outcome will be.”
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